A new kind of pickup artist is creeping on your wall and your OKCupid profile.
“You look really spontaneous.”
A couple of years ago, I was casually browsing the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble when a strange guy sidled up next to me. What was I reading? Did I live in New York? Did I go there often? All standard fare. But then, out of the blue, he said I looked really spontaneous. Like, the kind of person who would go skydiving or ski down a mountain strapped to a pair of naked ninja turtles. I brushed the comment, and the guy, off. But then it happened again. And again. The exact same line about spontaneity, all from different guys.
It turns out that inceptioning the idea of “spontaneity” into a woman’s mind is a common tactic used by pickup artists to encourage her to take a chance on him — or at least casual sex with him — outlined in Neil Stauss’ widely read 2005 book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, which garnered significant criticism for shedding light onto the sometimes-manipulative tactics employed by pickup artists. A “pickup artist” is basically a guy who feeds you a line but supposedly it’s such a good line that you don’t notice.
Strauss's book focused on the "art" of real-life pickups. But thanks to the ubiquity of Facebook and Twitter, combined with the mainstreaming of online dating sites, there's now a new genre of online pickup artistry. It’s a new world to exploit — with fresh eBooks, video tutorials, and interminable website copy interspersed with plenty of cleavage — all dedicated to figuring out the intricacies of online attraction and seduction.
Online pick-up artistry has taken the original aims of IRL pick-up — to develop general tactics and techniques for attracting and bedding women— one step further. One dehumanizing step further. Now, instead of “peacocking” (wearing gaudy outfits to demonstrate Alpha status) in bars and using tired negs, we have them deconstructing every aspect of online persona and communication to create sleek, marketing packages of human beings to sell to one another. All of this wouldn’t seem so sinister — just some helpful advice on talking to girls! — if it appeared that the aim of online pick-up artists was to encourage real relationships. But the message of all their websites is pretty consistent, even if the sites' creators claim otherwise: There are rules and techniques and data to use to have sex with anyone you want to.
